GOBI Library Solutions

This matters for scholarly, professional, and course-adoptable books, and for most trade fiction it does not, so you can stop here if your book is the second kind. For a book that does fit, being missing from the platform, or profiled under the wrong subject, is easy for academic libraries to overlook, because many of their selections come through it. Authors don't get accounts, so on every route the move is normally to ask rather than to act: a traditionally published academic author normally finds the publisher has this covered, while a hybrid or self-published author has to raise it with whoever handles distribution and may be told the book won't appear. Get a clear answer on whether the book is listed and whether library ebook licenses are available there.

GOBI Library Solutions is EBSCO's acquisition platform for academic libraries. EBSCO describes it as a provider of ebooks, print books, and workflow services to academic libraries worldwide; libraries use it to select, order, and receive print and digital books through a single interface, to run approval plans (standing arrangements that send or suggest new titles matching a library's profile), and to get cataloging and physical processing.

GOBI's catalog is built from publisher and vendor data, and its own selectors add metadata used by librarians for collection decisions. Healthcare, corporate, and consortium libraries use it too, but its center of gravity is university and college libraries.

Whether an academic library that buys through GOBI can find and order your book, and how it is profiled for approval plans. A scholarly or professional title missing from GOBI, or profiled under the wrong subject, is easy for academic libraries to overlook because many of their selections come through the platform.

This matters for scholarly, professional, and course-adoptable books; for most trade fiction it does not. If your book fits that description, ask the publisher whether it is listed in GOBI, whether ebook licenses are available to libraries through it, and how it is profiled. University presses and academic publishers almost always have this covered; a trade or small press may not.

Authors do not get GOBI accounts. If you want to see the listing, a subject librarian at a university library can look it up. Self-published books rarely appear in GOBI unless they reach it through a distributor or aggregator; if academic libraries matter for your book, raise this with whoever handles your distribution.

1. Ask the publisher whether each ISBN is available in GOBI and in which formats.
2. Ask a subject or acquisitions librarian at a university library to check the title in GOBI and tell you the profile subject and availability.
3. Confirm the library ebook availability matches what the publisher expects.
4. Note the answers with your other library-channel information.

GOBI is an academic-library acquisition platform, not a public-library wholesaler like Ingram and not a database of holdings like WorldCat. Being in GOBI does not mean any library has bought the book. It is also not EBSCOhost, the article database, although the same company runs both.